On 15 Nov 2007, at 19:31, AES wrote:
>> In Simplifying expressions containing multiple Trig functions, I'd
>> like
>> to persuade Mathematica to limit its vocabulary to Sin, Cos and Tan,
>> and avoid Sec, Csc and Cot (while continuing to put expressions
>> into the
>> simplest Together form, and so on).
>
>
> Just to add a little fillip to this original query of mine, I'll
> make a
> the following challenge/good faith offer:
>
> If any regular posters to either of these groups can identify any
> published optics or e-m theory text in which Snell's Law is written as
>
> n1 Csc[ theta2 ] = n2 Csc[ theta1 ]
>
> instead of
>
> n1 Sin[ theta1 ] = n2 Sin[ theta2 ]
>
> and Brewster's angle is written as
>
> Cot[ thetaB ] = n1 / n2
>
> instead of
>
> Tan[thetaB] = n2/n1
>
> (or any algebraically equivalent formulations using "cosecant" or
> cotangent"), I'll write a $20 check to any (one!) U.S. tax-deductible
> charitable organization selected by the first such responder .
> (Time of
> email receipt in my MacBook Eudora IN box determines "first").
>
It seems to me that with the current exchange rate for the dollar I
would rather contribute myself (the equivalent of) $20 to tax-
deductible charity than embark on a book search, particularly of
books on topics that I know nothing about.
However, if you are just concerned about appearance (as you seem to
be) then, as I wrote in my original reply - it can be done. For
example, take a look at this:
http://forums.wolfram.com/mathgroup/archive/2000/Jul/msg00109.html
The proposed solution uses "Format" which is nowadays considered
rather "low tech" - with more recent versions of mathematica a more
pleasing result can be accomplished with MakeBoxes.
Andrzej Kozlowski